The older we get, the more we are awash in memories. So it is with director/choreographer Pearlann Porter, who is reviving “Paper Memory” as she transitions from The Pillow Project to a new dance company.

“Remembering the memory of ‘Paper Memory,’” a 5-year-old work she created with performance artist Taylor Knight, is odd for the diminutive artist.

“I can’t believe it was five years ago,” she says. “It really blows my mind.”

This work is an intimate multimedia installation about a writer finding the story — or the story finding the writer. There are still little scraps of paper in the corners of her roomy performance incubator, The Space Upstairs above Construction Junction in Point Breeze.

“That can be beautiful, or an indicator that we don’t clean diligently enough,” she says.

It also shows that this “Memory” has never gone away.

It is exciting for Ms. Porter to reconnect with Mr. Knight. “We were just figuring out how to work together, and we were just figuring out this improvisational idea and what it might look like,” she says.

“Paper Memory” was a turning point for Ms. Porter. “Before that I was doing these big, giant blowout shows.”

In “Paper Memory,” her style “got really quiet. It was the first time I was working with people who were really with me.”

Together they went to new artistic depths. “I learned to trust myself because people were trusting me.” She says the piece became “the substance of, the roots of what we do now, everything that we’ve done for the past five years together.”

It guided how Ms. Porter directs current productions and the way she structures them to work so seamlessly. Mr. Knight will return to reprise his role as the writer, along with PJ Roduta’s original soundtrack and Mike Cooper’s projection elements. New cast members include Andrew Swackhamer and Alexandria Bright.

Ms. Porter’s life has changed radically, both personally and professionally, since 2010. She has been to Paris nine times, honing her improvisational style. That led to changing the color of the show, still infused with a feeling of “beautiful loneliness,” to a sepia, pale pink.

“Memory” will be her last work for The Pillow Project, which was named for the rush of ideas that kept her up at night earlier in her career.

“I will still be creating work — there’s no shortage of ideas. But it’s a good stopping point for what I was trying to do with it. And, in a way, I need to put it to bed,” she says with a trademark chuckle.

The encore of “Paper Memory” also will serve as a transition into The Ellipses Condition, a new company with partner and writer John Lambert. Some people have noticed that Mr. Knight’s character shares some characteristics with Mr. Lambert, even though she wrote it before they met.

Or maybe, as Ms. Porter reflects, she wrote “Paper Memory” so that the writer could be found. …

Former Post-Gazette critic Jane Vranish can be reached at jvranish1@comcast.net. She also blogs at pittsburghcrosscurrents.com.

First Published: December 2, 2015, 5:00 a.m.